Longi and Zhonghuan secure granular polysilicon from GCL

Longi Green Energy Technology and Zhonghuan Semiconductor, the world’s two largest makers of monocrystalline solar wafers, have closed major supply contracts with Jiangsu Zhongneng, the wholly-owned polysilicon subsidiary of GCL-Poly Energy.

On February 1, Longi signed a three-year contract, according to which Zhongneng will deliver 91,400 metric tons (MT) of polysilicon – including granular material – to Longi’s seven wafer subsidiaries from March 2021 through December 2023.

One day later, a subsidiary of Zhonghuan Semiconductor inked a five-year framework agreement with GCL and Zhongneng for the supply of even 350,000 MT from January 2022 through December 2026. Zhonghuan also owns a 30% share in the 48,000 MT polysilicon plant of Xinjiang GCL.

For Longi, it is the fourth big supply contract the company has sealed with Chinese top polysilicon manufacturers for the coming years. The average annual supply volume of all four contracts together amounts to a total of 139,514 MT (see chart above), which is sufficient to produce approx. 48 GW of monocrystalline wafers per year.

According to Chinese sources, however, Longi reached an annual wafer production capacity of 90 GW at the end of 2020 and is planning to expand it to 120 GW by the end of 2021. Thus, the contracted polysilicon volume only covers less than half of Longi’s feedstock demand.

GCL-Poly’s subsidiary Jiangsu Zhongneng is gradually converting its factory in Xuzhou, Jiangsu province from the conventional Siemens process to fluidized bed reactor (FBR) technology to produce granular polysilicon. Zhongneng is aiming to achieve an FBR production capacity of 54,000 MT by the end of the first quarter of 2022. In October 2020 GCL started the construction of a second FBR production base with a capacity of 80,000 MT in Leshan, Sichuan province.

The company will take the sales contracts with the world’s two largest makers of monocrystalline solar wafers as a vote of confidence for the quality of its granular polysilicon.